Parental Perspectives on Early Childhood Bilingualism in a Challenging Environment

Abstract

Early Childhood Bilingualism (ECB, hence forth) refers to the development of language proficiency in two languages during the formative years of a child's life, typically from birth to around age six. This period is crucial for language acquisition and encompasses various factors that influence bilingual language development, such as linguistic environments, cultural influences, and cognitive processes. The objective of this study research is to investigate early childhood bilingual parenting among Algerian families especially those residing in the city of Ain Sefra, a small town in the extreme west of Algeria. To achieve this goal, the researcher adopts mixed-method approach to study parents’ perceptions of ECB, challenges they face and the strategies they use to overcome these challenges for fostering a successful bilingual child. To collect data the researcher conducted semi-structured face-to-face and online interviews with eight (8) parents, in addition to administering an online and paper based questionnaire to forty seven (47) others among the citizens of Ain sefra. The gathered data were analyzed and the results obtained indicate that ECB is recognized as highly beneficial for children by the majority of parents and yet they are poorly informed about how it works which leads to negative impact on their decision making regarding bilingual children rearing.